The dog had an old injury in its leg, a treatable skin condition and too much pit bull in him to stand much chance of being adopted if it was taken to the Stockton Animal Shelter, McFall said.

But she didn't know where Henry came from when she arrived at work at the University of the Pacific on a recent morning. "I just squatted down and he came right over to me and just put his head on my chest and wanted to be petted," she said.

And that was it. She took the dog to a veterinarian and she was fostering another dog until it could be placed in a permanent home.

McFall, 48, has become a visible animal rights activist in Stockton in recent years. She lives in Valley Springs and is director of learning and academic assessment at the university. She and her husband moved back to California when she took the job in 2010.

Before that, she had worked at a school in Kentucky, where she also spent a lot of time volunteering at a local animal shelter. It was where her views on how animals should be handled at shelters was galvanized. She believes that "no-kill" shelters are both preferable and possible.

McFall is one of the more vocal critics of the Stockton Animal Shelter, where hundreds of animals a month are euthanized.

She is one of the people teaming up with the national Animal Legal Defense Fund to sue Stockton over the shelter. The proposed suit has got needed permission from the federal judge overseeing Stockton's bankruptcy but has not yet been filed.

The shelter is part of the Stockton Police Department and it handles animals from both Stockton and unincorporated county. Shelter officials and its defenders have noted that Stockton sees a large number of strays and abandoned animals that exceeds the number of people coming in to adopt them. In recent years the euthanasia rates for cats and dogs has been dropping, and efforts to spay and neuter feral cats have stepped up in an attempt to reduce the number of strays that might end up in the shelter. And the shelter has added an in-house veterinarian and officials have said conditions for animals have improved.

But McFall wasn't willing to take that chance with Henry.

Or as McFall described the dog, "the usual."

Question: What do you mean by "the usual?"

Answer: The usual is just a dog that would not make it out of the Stockton shelter alive. That is a dog that would be labeled a pit bull or a pit bull mix and has health issues.

Q: Is it ever necessary to euthanize animals?

A: You have to euthanize hopelessly suffering animals. At this point, we don't have a humane alternative for vicious dogs. I don't believe that it is necessary to kill healthy and treatable animals.

Q: How were your views on euthanasia changed from volunteering in the shelter in Kentucky?

A: I spent a lot of time volunteering there. I had the run of the shelter. I did off-site adoption events. I was in the euthanasia room while they killed more than one animal. At the time I believed what I was told that animals had to be euthanized. ... I saw the killing happening with empty kennels and cages. I saw it happening for behavior reasons where simple alternatives hadn't been tried. ... I had truly believed the rhetoric that nobody wants to kill. But they did. And it floored me.

Q: What is the alternative?

A: The main name for it is the "no-kill equation." It's basically a set of programs to reduce intake in the short- and long-term ... high-volume, low-cost spay and neuter; helping people keep their pets ... and placement is really an off-site adoption program.

Q: What can Stockton do better?

A: I think the main things that Stockton to do better is to bring in leadership with a history of success. And recruit and actively cultivate community involvement - volunteers, donors (and) partnerships. Sacramento is doing it now.

Q: How would you describe your cause?

A: It is helping an inevitable paradigm shift to happen. I think we're in the early stages of a paradigm shift around sheltering. That means there is some opposition, but there are also early examples of success. This really is a matter of life and death for creatures that matter to a lot of us. We love our pets.

Q: Can you fight city hall?

A: Every social movement has shown that you can.

Q: Is there a person who has influenced you?

A: (Historian) Howard Zinn. (He) was a mentor to student activists on campus and an example of how to live with integrity. ... I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to live with integrity.

Q: How many dogs do you own?

A: Three.

Q: Do you let them sit on the couch?

A: Yeah. It's more like: Do they let us on the couch.

Contact reporter Zachary K. Johnson at (209) 546-8258 or zjohnson@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/johnsonblog and on Twitter @zacharykjohnson.